This Word is Not Enough
by foreverwriting9
Summary: Post-ep for 'The Boiler Room Job', in which Nate and Sophie eat dinner, have a breakthrough in their relationship, and then get slightly drunk.


Nate finds Sophie up in his apartment when he returns from his meeting with Jack Latimer.

"Sophie?"

"Hmm?" She looks up from the magazine she's holding in her hands. "Oh, Nate!"

"What are you doing?"

"Waiting for _you_. Where have you been?"

"Meeting with the man who bugged my apartment." Nate joins her at the table, sighing as he slumps down against the chair back.

"Oh," she watches him carefully, "do you want to talk about it?"

Nate's eyes slide shut and he pinches the bridge of his nose. "Not right now, Soph. I need to think."

"All right," Sophie stands up and moves so that she's right beside him. She reaches down and takes his hand, tugging gently. "While you're thinking, why don't we go get something to eat?"

XXX

The restaurant Sophie takes him to is slightly more expensive than the other places they've chosen. Highly polished silverware sits gleaming on tabletops, and waiters dressed in crisp blacks and whites scurry around with smiles plastered on their faces.

Nate takes a deep breath. There's a distinct sense that this is a place for proposals and anniversaries, not a dumping ground for two thieves and their woefully unclassified relationship. "Sophie, sometime we're going to have to talk about this." Nate's fingers trace the pattern on the expensive tablecloth.

Sophie tilts her head to one side. "Oh?" Her foot taps Nate's shin.

"Don't play innocent with me." It comes out sharper than he intends, and Sophie's eyes narrow. Nate gestures around at the restaurant, and then between himself and Sophie. "_This_ is a relationship, and you know it. I don't care what other name you try to stick on it; it's a relationship."

"Fine," Sophie says, reaching for her wineglass, "it's a relationship."

Nate smiles across the table at her triumphantly, but Sophie pointedly ignores him, her eyes glued to the menu. Nate leans forward and says, in a slightly lower tone, "So, aren't you wondering what that means?"

Sophie looks up at him. "What it means?"

"For us."

She shrugs. "Frankly I'm waiting for you to high tail it out of here the moment I'm not paying attention."

"I'm still here."

"I know. Curious isn't it?"

Nate frowns. "Why do I suddenly feel like I'm not winning this conversation?"

Sophie smirks, and takes a long drink of wine. "Because you're not."

XXX

Two hours later, they're back at McRory's, trying to keep straight faces as they watch each other get more than a little drunk.

Nate downs his third glass of gin, nods to the bartender as she walks out the door, and then slides off his stool to lock the front door. When he turns back to the half lit bar, Sophie is on the other side of the counter making herself a drink.

"Soph?" Nate sits back down on the stool and holds out his glass in supplication. Sophie walks over to him, leans in just close enough so that he can smell her perfume, and pours him another drink. She laughs then, as though she finds something extremely hilarious.

"What?" Nate squints at her, his fingers tight around his glass. Sophie sniffs. "Just never thought I'd be _giving _you alcohol. I feel a bit like an enabler or something."

"Haha," Nate says, deadpan.

"I'm sorry," she says, making her way around the bar to stand beside him. "I'm really sorry about that."

Nate stands up from his stool so that he and Sophie are toe to toe. "You just apologized."

"Yeah, well. Don't get too used to it."

"Oh, I don't plan on it."

"You deserve most of the things I say to you."

"I know." Nate takes a step toward Sophie, pinning her up against the bar.

"Nate." It's half question, half statement.

Nate gently wrestles the shot glass from her hand, tosses it back, and winces at the fire that starts in the back of his throat. Then, he kisses her.

She tastes like mint and alcohol.

Nate breaks the kiss, resting his forehead against hers, sucking air into his lungs like a dying man. "Do you ever wonder," he pauses and gasps in a deep breath, "if we're getting too old for this?"

Sophie's fingers twist the buttons on his shirt, and she laughs. "It's not the years, honey, it's the mileage."

Nate pulls back to stare at her. "An _Indiana Jones_ quote? Sophie, how many of those shots have you had?"

She kisses him, ignores the question, and pulls him back toward the elevator. "You're such a geek for knowing that."

Nate raises an eyebrow. "You're the one who-"

Sophie's lips effectively kill the sentence before he has time to finish.

XXX

They stumble out of the elevator five minutes later, fingers tangled in each other's hair and clothes.

Nate manages to control himself for about a minute as he walks over to his apartment door and searches for the key.

"Na-ate, why'd you have to lock the door?" Sophie is standing much too close to him, and that combined with the liquor is making it next to impossible for him to concentrate. He turns to look at her, laughing when his eyes adjust and he discovers how disheveled she's become.

"Sophie, I work with thieves, why wouldn't I lock my door?" Nate finds the key, unlocks the door, and almost yelps when Sophie pushes him through the opening. She stumbles as she crosses the threshold after him, her heels posing a problem to her balance. Nate laughs again, and thinks hazily that he's never laughed so much in one night.

"I'm much better at being drunk than you."

"S'not fair," Sophie says with a frown and a deep look of concentration as she slips her shoes off and tosses them onto the floor, "you've had more practice."

Neither one of them will be able to make it up the stairs, so Nate grabs her hand, kisses her, and pulls her toward the nearest flat surface. "Sophie." It comes out sounding like a groan, a question, and a demand all rolled into one.

Sophie smiles up at him, her cheeks a light shade of pink, and Nate thinks (knows) that if he were to die, right now, he'd be the happiest man on earth.


End file.
